A Dying Breed: Ontario’s Forgotten Abandoned Houses
In the year 2001 the population in the small town of Milton, Ontario was just over 31,000 people — making this an ideal small town in the province to raise a family.
Now, in 2016 the estimated population in Milton is well over 100,000 with projections of 228,000 by 2031. Milton is a town surrounded by farmers fields and the Niagara Escarpment and divided by the 401 highway. This small town that is west of Mississauga, north of Burlington and Oakville and not too far from Toronto and right on the 401 quickly became the ideal place to start a family with an easy commute to work. Now as you travel between Oakville or Burlington into Milton it’s hard to notice where one city ends and the next one begins.
Milton is just one of many Ontario cities that are building homes all over what were once vast fields and family farms. As developers purchase land and as builders wait for the permits and for the lots to sell, what’s left behind are the houses that used to run those farms. Farms where the kids learned the importance of a hard days work, where the farmers made a living on blood and sweat and hard work and a place where city dwellers could escape for a long country drive with the family.
In a 2015 Toronto Star article titled Ontario farmland under threat as demand for housing grows we learn of a farmer named Don Howard who is a fifth generation farmer north of Newmarket. Nine years ago Don’s mother sold their land to a developer and Don now pays that developer rent to live and work on his own family farm — but he is living there on borrowed time. The article states that developers are “…banking that urban sprawl will soon find a new home among the York Region towns and hamlets that form an island, slated for development, right in the heart of Ontario’s 10-year-old protected Greenbelt zone.”
There are surely many more “Don Howard’s” out there in his same situation, I have personally had conversations with a handful of men who are living on land now owned by developers, their family homestead left abandoned and derelict, waiting for the eventual development of more modern cookie cutter housing. Farmers living on borrowed time in homes that have been there for generations, homes with charm, character and hours upon hours of stories from the many years.
These old and derelict houses are what curious explorers and photographers like myself and many others seek to document and photograph before the urban sprawl takes over.
We still have back roads and we still have lots of open countryside but take a drive anywhere in Ontario and head down any of those country roads and it won’t be long until you start noticing all of the abandoned and forgotten houses that are scattered all over the province.
Some of them are visible in plain sight, some of them are hidden behind years of bushes, trees and overgrowth and some are down long driveways and well hidden in what was once a farmers field.
Shattered windows with curtains flowing in the breeze, screen doors open and barely hanging on, crumbling roofs and siding hanging on by a screw. Old rusty farm equipment left in the fields, barns with fallen roofs, left to become an eventual heap of wood that will end up being the “authentic barn-board kitchen table” sold for $2,000 at Pier 1.
Now, for the next in my ongoing series of documenting the many abandoned houses left behind all across Ontario, here is a brand new selection of the derelict and abandoned houses I’ve visited and photographed in my travels around the province.
An abandoned house found in the middle of a wheat field near Listowel, Ontario.
A home near Rockwood, Ontario that was at one time undergoing restoration
Inside this abandoned house sits a bear head rug in the living room
An abandoned house found somewhere east of Chatham, Ontario
The back roads between London and Chatham are peppered with old houses like this one.
Near Welland, Ontario many people drive past this abandoned house every day and probably don’t even notice it.
Power still runs to this old insulbrick home in the Hamilton area but home sits vacant
Somewhere down a long overgrown driveway in Binbrook, Ontario.
An abandoned school house north of London, Ontario. In the summer months this building is entirely surrounded by corn.
This beautiful stone house near Lake Michigan will soon be fallen into itself
This small green house sits right in the middle of a corn field somewhere in Southwestern, Ontario. ntirely hidden in the summer months.
A geodesic dome house in Huron County seems to be a reno project left unfinished
An abandoned home built with the Gothic Revival style in Milton, Ontario
A child’s Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal ironically sitting beside a fallen hornets nest somewhere near Georgetown, Ontario
This home in Halton region is slated for demolition
Thank you for taking the time to read, I look forward to your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below.
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At 65,000 square feet, the Peter Grant Mansion goes by different names – Haileybury House, Peter Grant Mansion or simply “Canada's Largest Mansion”. It was built along the shores of Lake Temiskaming in Northern Ontario by Peter Grant Junior.
Guyitt House – Canada's Most Photographed House (Palmyra, Ontario) The Guyitt House is said to be Canada's most photographed house. The house is located along the Talbot Trail (now known as Highway 3) in Palmyra, Ontario.
Property preservation, rehabbers, vacant property investors, and other companies looking to preserve the image that a property is still inhabited often use steel window and door guards. The reason for using steel is to protect the property – thus deterring break-ins.
It did not receive an offer and went to a bankruptcy auction in March 2022, where it sold to Richard Saghian, the CEO of Fashion Nova, for $126 million plus a 12 percent commission to the Concierge Auctions that raised his total investment to $141 million.
On June 27, 2023, the mansion's sale was completed for $9 million, and ownership passed to the nonprofit Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation. A music video for the song "Come on Heartache" by the band The Menzingers was filmed onsite at Lynnewood Hall in September 2023.
Key Findings: As of 2022, nearly a quarter of New Orleans homes were sitting empty. The city had the highest housing vacancy rate in the study (22.9 percent), and other Louisiana locations like Shreveport (16 percent) and Baton Rouge (16 percent) had high rates too.
Located on a strange piece of property nestled beside the DVP Adelaide ramp is a house that has probably caught your eye. If not for its strange shape, thhn maybe for the advertisem*nt for Coffee Time on the side of it. The cube house was built twenty years ago as a prototype for innovative housing.
The Canadian province of Ontario has a significant number of ghost towns. These are most numerous in the Central Ontario and Northern Ontario regions, although a smaller number of ghost towns can be found throughout the province.
CHATHAM – An old farmhouse near here that was dubbed Canada's most photographed house has been reduced to a dirt pile after its owner was unable to convince the local municipality to quash a demolition order.
Because electricity may have been added to older homes long after they were built, or because vents were not easily installed or commonly installed as part of construction back in the day, windows were put in place as a way to ventilate the room when it was filled with unpleasant smells or too much moisture.
Houses without maintenance will eventually deteriorate due to natural forces like weather, biological decay and structural failure over decades or even centuries. Cosmetic damages like peeling paint and structural issues such as roof collapse and foundational shifts occur as moisture and pests break down materials.
It's tempting to assume that no one will notice or care if you sneak into an abandoned mansion. But chances are good that someone still owns the property, and if you enter without permission, you're trespassing. Take the time to do your homework, find the owner and ask if you can visit.
However, construction was never fully completed and after illness, divorce, and bankruptcy crippled the couple, construction was halted by the mid-1980s.
The Peter Grant Mansion sits on 43 acres of property and was last listed in 2010 as costing $25million. It was near completion before the 2008 economic recession financially crippled its owner and his company. Grant now lives at another luxurious property within the grounds of a nearby golf course.
Andrew McNeal was the first and only person to call the mansion their home. Following his departure from the mansion, the property was used for corporate reasons. The pipe company moved its headquarters to Alabama in 1953, leaving the mansion abandoned.
After being bought by developers in 2000 there were plans to make it the shining jewel of the future Manor Golf Course. Unfortunately, the money dried up for the developers and pieces of the property were sold to different investors. The golf course was constructed in 2004 and the mansion was ignored.
Introduction: My name is Neely Ledner, I am a bright, determined, beautiful, adventurous, adventurous, spotless, calm person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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